“There’s something I have to do,” she told him. “I won’t be long. Don’t be so finicky.”
Despite her testy words, she took time to slash a clear patch around him. He trilled softly. With a fond smile, she stroked his neck, and he settled down for a nap. Making use of her sword again, she cut a path to the broken pinnacle.
Faeterus’s remains were still there. Ants were busily stripping away the last bits of dry flesh, but it was the sorcerer’s bones that concerned Kerian. She’d seen for herself how the long-dead creatures of the valley had been reborn. From rabbits to aurochs, the animals of Inath-Wakenti had been remade from their ancient bones. Despite Hytanthas’s hopes, none of the elves taken by the will-o’-the-wisps had been so favored. No one knew why, but the elves, they remained lost.
Still Kerian could not rid herself of the nagging fear that a powerful sorcerer such as Faeterus would find some way back from death. Wise Sa’ida and well-read Favaronas had been unable to assure her that her suspicions were groundless, so she would make absolutely certain Faeterus could never again darken the world.
The joints had fallen apart, and the bones were scattered. She cut away greenery and raked through the dirt with her fingers, seeking even the tiniest bones. As she found each one, she laid it atop the sorcerer’s rotted robe. When she was satisfied she’d left none behind, she soaked the pile and the dirty fabric with lamp oil and set it alight.
The pyre blazed up, sending a stream of dirty yellow smoke skyward. She fed the fire with vine cuttings and windfall limbs, turning it into a genuine bonfire.
The morning passed. Kerian sat on the edge of the Stair and ate wild blueberries. The view was spectacular, and she allowed herself to be captured by it. Fluffy clouds floated high over Inath-Wakenti, dappling mighty trees and lush foliage with patterns of light and shade. Flocks of starlings wheeled overhead. Nearby, squirrels leaped from treetop to treetop, and birds trilled and sang.
She kept the bonfire hot, adding kindling and splashes of oil. Only when the sun hovered above the western peaks did she allow the flames to die out. Raking through the ashes with a tree branch, she crushed any remaining bits of bone to dust. The hot ashes and bone dust went into a clay pot that she carried back to Eagle Eye.
The last scraps of the creature that called itself Faeterus would not remain in Inath-Wakenti. Kerian and Eagle Eye winged down the valley toward the pass. They flew far out into the desert before the Lioness upended the clay pot. The cloud of ashes was taken by the wind and scattered across many miles of Khurish sand.
* * * * *
A line of nomads riding on the shady side of a dune spied a very odd thing: a lone figure walking toward them. No one but foolish laddad went about in the desert on foot. The nomads-they were Weya-Lu, as it happened-halted their horses and watched in cautious curiosity hands resting on sword hilts. The stranger wore only a ragged breechcloth. His skin was burned by the sun to the color of cinnabar. He was either mad, possessed by a desert spirit, or a monster in disguise. He hailed them.
“Stand where you are!” the eldest nomad commanded. He drew his sword and pointed its curved blade at the sun-baked apparition. “Name yourself!”
“I am Shobbat, son of Sahim, Khan of All the Khurs!”
That decided the issue. He was a madman.
Advancing slowly, hands held high, he cried, “Look upon me and know the truth!”
“What truth?”
“I have come from the land of the dead-from the Valley of the Blue Sands. I, who was cursed and given the form of a beast by a vile foreign sorcerer, have been cured by the gods! Now I return to cleanse the land of Khur!”
His words fell upon fertile ground. The Weya-Lu, still grieving the loss of so many of their kin as well as their Weyadan, listened. They let the stranger come into their midst. Under the deep-desert burn, the features of the khan’s eldest son were apparent. Still, their allegiance was not so easily won.
“How long have you been in the desert?” one man asked.
Shobbat shrugged. “I don’t know. I awoke in the valley, naked as the day I was born. I set out each morning with the rising sun on my right shoulder, three mornings so far.”
The Weya-Lu exclaimed. He carried nothing with him; had he once had provisions? None at all, he said. Immediately, they pressed a waterskin on him. He drank, not with the desperate thirst that should have afflicted him, but slowly, his actions those of a true child of the desert, who is always careful not to waste a drop of precious water. The nomads were awed. Surely Those on High were watching over the prince. How else to explain his not simply surviving in the desert for three days, but being in such good health?
“May we escort you back to Khuri-Khan, Highness?” asked the eldest.
“In time.” Shobbat took another drink. “When I return to the city of the khan, I will wipe clean the stain of corruption there. My father treats with all manner of foreigners. He takes their coin, fawns over them, and protects them, all the while oppressing the righteous believers of his own nation, those who follow the Condor.”
The nomads nodded their approval of the epithet. Not even Torghan’s own children used his true name lightly.
Shobbat added, “I will not allow this to continue. Those on High have spared me to lead the righteous against a corrupt and unworthy ruler!”
The fire of righteousness blazed from Shobbat’s eyes. Each man felt it, breath-stealing as a dash of icy water in the face. One by one, swords were drawn and lifted high. The nomads likewise lifted their voices, shouting, “Hail the Desert-Blessed Prince! Hail the Son of the Avenger!”
The shouts continued for a longtime. Shobbat stood in the center of the ring of men, soaking up the acclaim as a tree soaks up spring water. These dozen Weya-Lu were his first converts. More would follow, many more, and the walls of Khuri-Khan would tremble.
Epilogue
Emissaries arrived before summer ended. They came from Solamnia and Ergoth, Sanction and Schallsea, and numerous other cities across the land. The soldiers among the delegations noted with practiced eyes the great wall being erected across the mouth of the valley. The design was typically elven: elegant and clean with soaring buttresses and high towers whose slender shapes belied their great underlying strength. Behind the outer wall, a second had been started, and beyond it lay the foundations of a third. The mountains ringing Inath-Wakenti were rich in granite. No effort was being spared to make the walls high and thick. It would be some time before the defenses were complete, but when they were, no army could hope to force the passage.
The visitors were conducted along a road of finely crushed blue granite to the budding city in the center of the valley. There they were received by the Speaker of the Sun and Stars in a palace complex being built atop the largest single slab of stone any of the visitors had ever seen. None knew the significance of the Tympanum, but all wondered at the broad crack bisecting it.
Before winter claimed the outer world, a special emissary arrived from Khuri-Khan. General Hakkam led a party of forty high lords from the court of Sahim-Khan. All were attired in the panoply of Khur, a splendid display, if barbarous to elf eyes. Clan totems were rendered in gold atop broad-brimmed helmets. Every shoulder, every elbow bristled with a shining steel spike, and each man’s hooded sun mantle was spotlessly white-the color of wealth in dusty Khur.
Although city-dwellers rather than superstitious nomads, the Khurish delegation still preferred not to enter the Valley of the Blue Sands. As a conciliatory gesture to his reluctant ally, Gilthas broke protocol by meeting them just inside the uncompleted valley wall. He arrived on foot, shaded from the late-autumn sun by a long canopy of flowers supported by a dozen young elves. Although large, the canopy weighed very little and rippled in the slight breeze. The canny Speaker also wore white. Even his aurochs-leather sandals were pale as mountain snow. The only touches of color were the square- cut amethysts decorating the ends of the cord tied around the waist of his robe.
Hamaramis, Taranath, a
nd a retinue of warriors followed their sovereign. They, too, were clad in white and bedecked with flowers. The display had been carefully orchestrated, and it had just the impact Gilthas intended. As desert-dwellers, the Khurs regarded flowers and green plants with deep reverence. Presenting his people awash in blossoms-so near winter, no less-proclaimed Gilthas’s power far better than gilded raiment would have. The elves presented a pageant of wealth and success, the kind that fills bellies and swells coffers with income from trade.
The Khurish delegation halted their horses and watched with barely concealed amazement as the laddad khan approached. In lieu of a silver or gold crown, Gilthas wore a circlet of green ivy. When he stopped, the youths also halted, sending a slow undulation along the length of the floral canopy.
“Hail, Great Speaker! May you reign a thousand years!” Hakkam cried.
“Oh, not quite that long,” Gilthas replied genially, turning the Khur’s hyperbole into a subtle reminder of the long life spans of elves. Hamaramis and Taranath both bit back smiles.
Somewhat taken aback, Hakkam blinked but forged ahead.
“You are well, Great Speaker?”
“I am. How fares my friend, the mighty Sahim-Khan?”
“The Khan of All the Khurs feasts on the fear of his enemies!”
“No doubt. What news do you bring, General?”
“The mighty Sahim-Khan bade me tell you that when the autumn stars were high in the sky, he drove out the ambassador from Neraka and all his hirelings.”
“Good!” Hamaramis said. Gilthas waited a long moment to reply, silently rebuking the general for speaking out of turn, then inquired of Hakkam what had precipitated the expulsion.
The human frowned. “It is well known the over-the-mountain men have long stirred up treason against our august khan. Your Majesty sent proof of that to my master months ago.”
Gilthas had had no word from Robien on the success or failure of his embassy to the khan. He was glad to know the bounty hunter had gotten the priestess’s message through.
“Yes,” he said benignly. “Many months ago.”
Hakkam leaned on his saddle pommel, scowling at the implied criticism. “The roots of bribery and treachery were deep. It took the khan’s loyal vassals time to bring all to light.”
Gilthas offered congratulations to Sahim-Khan and his steadfast defenders. “Is that all?” he asked.
The forty Khurish lords stirred on their horses. Plainly, that was not all Hakkam had come to say, but he seemed to have difficulty choosing his words. Finally, he said, “A rebellion has broken out in the south of our country. The tribesmen have rallied around a treacherous leader.”
Many of the elves present immediately thought of Porthios. But he’d gone to Qualinesti. He should be nowhere near Khur.
“Who is this leader?” Gilthas asked.
“He who was Shobbat.”
Despite his surprise, Gilthas made careful note of that phrasing: not “Crown Prince Shobbat” nor “His Highness,” but only “Shobbat.” He expressed his regret at the turn of events, saying “Family wounds are always the deepest.”
Hakkam drew a short, rolled scroll from inside his gauntlet. Taranath rode forward to convey it to Gilthas.
“My master, the mighty Sahim-Khan, proposes an alliance. In that document are his terms. If the Great Speaker would care to read-”
“I shall.” Gilthas tucked the scroll into his belt. “When I have done so, I will give you my answer.”
He turned away. The canopy bearers about-faced. Hamaramis and the warriors turned their horses, and the entire entourage departed the way it had come. The Khurs were left fuming. All Hakkam could do was lead his own delegation back beyond the unfinished walls where they would make camp and await the Speaker’s answer.
Gilthas returned alone to his tent-not the large, open structure in which he conducted the daily affairs of state, but a smaller habitation that would serve as his private quarters until the new palace eventually was completed. The focus of construction in Inath-Wakenti was on humbler structures than the palace, by Gilthas’s own decree. More important to him was that his people have strong roofs over their heads. When those were done, then work would resume on the Speaker’s royal residence.
Within, he found Kerian reclining in a sling chair. Her face had taken on a rosy flush, and her hair had grown long enough to brush her shoulders. Her pregnancy was well advanced, and she did not bother trying to rise when he entered.
The gestation had gone much more quickly than usual. Truthanar believed the Great Change had somehow sped up the process. All the elf women in Inath-Wakenti who were pregnant were much further along than normal. An odd but popular belief was that the souls of those warriors lost to the will-o’-the-wisps were returning in the bodies of newborn babes. Kerian openly scoffed at the notion, but Gilthas could not. His own losses were severe enough that he would never deny solace to others. He knew he would grieve the deaths of his mother and Planchet for the rest of his days.
“How was old Hakkam?” she asked, shifting uncomfortably in the chair.
“Piratical as ever.”
He went to a small sideboard and poured them both some fruit juice. As he handed her a cup, he pulled the scroll from his belt. “He gave me this. Sahim wants an alliance. Shobbat’s rebellion is gaining ground.”
“What are you going to do?”
He sat down facing her and placed a hand on her belly. “Talk to my son.”
“We don’t know it will be a boy.”
“Truthanar says so.” Gilthas closed his eyes. Hello, son. How are you today? If you are well, give us a sign.
Whether Gilthas was communing with their child or not, the baby did kick his mother quite vigorously. Opening his eyes, Gilthas smiled broadly. Kerian shoved his hand away, but a grudging smile lightened her expression.
“Stop teaching her bad habits.” Growing serious again, she said, “You remember our bargain?”
He sighed. “You still intend to hold me to it?”
“Yes!”
“And what of our child? Can you leave him alone so easily?”
“Alone? Gil, there’ll be scores of elves vying for the chance to tend him!”
“A child needs his mother.”
“And his father. And a homeland.”
It was an old argument, given new urgency by a stream of news from the west. Word had come from Alhana that the revolt in Qualinesti was stalled. The Army of Liberation had landed on the east coast in midsummer and driven inland, swiftly cutting the country in two. Samuval’s army was pushed back over the border into Abanasinia. It seemed the end of the bandits’ reign, but local Nerakan forces south of the Ahlanlas River counterattacked, breaking the siege and freeing Samuval’s army. A vicious back-and-forth war raged: one side would take a town only to lose it the very next week. Central Qualinesti had become uninhabitable, full of abandoned villages and despoiled farms. The cruel impasse served no one, as thousands of Samuval’s troops battled hunger as well as the elves. Kerian was determined to join the fight, and she’d struck a bargain with Gilthas. Once the baby was born, she would fly to Qualinesti. He had agreed, believing that when the time actually came, she wouldn’t be able to leave their baby. He’d been berating himself for a fool ever since. When had the Lioness ever shown herself unwilling to join a fight, whatever the cost to herself?
Argument was pointless, but he still had to try. He took her hand. “Can you really leave us?”
“Only with your blessing.” She gripped his hand hard. “Do I have it?”
Misery filled his eyes, and she pulled him close. What use was there in wishing her to be other than what she was? Would he change her if he could? Of course not. But a part of him couldn’t help wishing she would give up placing herself in danger.
Burying his face in her neck, he whispered, “Whatever you choose to do, you have my blessing.”
He was proud of her courage and, ultimately, shared her desire to regain the lands they’d lost.
But he didn’t have the luxury of following that dream. At moments such as this, he hated being Speaker, unable to deny the higher cause of his country in favor of his own family. Such was the price of kingship.
* * * * *
Their child was born on the first day of the new year. Naming a son was a father’s privilege, and Gilthas chose the name Balifaris, meaning “Young Balif.”
Hamaramis, standing in as the mother’s father, held Kerian’s hand through the delivery. Afterward, he swore it was more painful for him than it had been for her. His hand did indeed sport a bandage, but Truthanar assured him the breaks would heal cleanly.
Soaked in sweat, Kerian held her son close. Mother and child had drifted off to sleep. In a whisper, the old general asked the Speaker the significance of the name he had chosen.
“Balif, although cursed and cast out, forged a new nation. I hope my son can do the same.” His strange hallucination while at the brink of death had left Gilthas with a feeling of kinship to the long-dead Silvanesti.
Kerian was a loving if plainspoken mother. She was also true to her word. Three months to the day after Balifaris was born, she bade son and husband an emotional farewell, mounted Eagle Eye, and flew off into the late-afternoon sky.
When she and her griffon were lost from sight, Gilthas felt a hand on his shoulder. It was his old archivist, Favaronas.
Since the Great Change, the Speaker’s favorite librarian had been little seen, spending all his days writing down his strange experiences in the Silent Vale. His close association with the sorcerer Faeterus had left him with startling conclusions about the origin of Inath-Wakenti and its power. Dragonstones and godly magic were not behind the valley’s weird nature, he believed. For centuries before and after the founding of the first elf realm, Speaker Silvanos, supplemented by a corps of powerful mages, had worked to suppress all clerical opposition to the throne. Mage by mage, enemies of the Speaker had their powers stripped away and sealed into the standing stones of Inath-Wakenti. The Brown Hood Society of wild sorcerers were wiped out to the last elf, for example. Later, the mage Vedvedsica tried to create his own race, using arcane magic to transform animals into the semblance of elves. The transformations did not last. Exposed as abominations, his creations were confined in Inath-Wakenti for all time, together with their maker. Vedvedsica was “the Father Who Made Not His Children” mentioned in the scrolls.
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